Syringe
by outsidersfanfic67
Summary: Dallas was saved before the cops shot him. Now all he can think about is Johnny's death. Dallas explores a mental asylum, looking for answers and asking endless questions. Will Dally ever be the same? Or will be classified as insane?
1. Chapter 1

"He's just a kid!" Dark figures danced across the horizon of the streets, taking the silhouettes of officers with guns down. No gunfire. The only sound that was heard was the thud of bodies pounding against the floor. I straightened my back and started to breathe normally again. I ran my fingers across my chest. No wounds. My gun was light.

"Johnny…" I whispered before I hit the floor.

When I came to, I was laying on hard, splintering wood. I didn't open my eyes for a couple seconds, and I took in the fumes of bacon. Bacon? I sat up. I was lying on the Curtis's floor, my torso bandaged, my blood stained jeans folded on the floor by the television, my wrists bordered with blood. I stood up and dragged myself into the kitchen.

"Hey, Dal," Two-Bit was sittin' on the counter, drinking a beer. He had a black eye the size of a Soc's fist, and a gash on his jawline. Ponyboy was shifting bacon back and forth in the pan, the stove steaming, the sink running.

"Hey, Dally," Ponyboy said. His voice was quieter than usual with a sickly sound to it.

"What's going on? Why am I here?" I asked, taking a seat.

"You don't remember? After Johnny-"

"Ponyboy, don't tell him anything right now. He's still in shock. Want a beer, Dal?" Two-Bit asked.

"No, I wanna know what happened."

"Ponyboy, don't tell him," Two-Bit said.

"He deserves to know," Ponyboy said.

I laid my cheek against the table as Two-Bit handed me my unwanted beer.

"Hey, Pony! Hey Two! Hey, Dal!" Sodapop walked in with his boxers riding on his hips and a bare chest.

"Soda, what happened last night?" I asked. His eyes became wide after he snagged a piece of bacon from Pony's pan.

"Uh, you don't know, Dal?"

"No."

"Do you think the fall hurt his head?"

"No, I just think he's in shock," Two-Bit said.

"Oh. Um, I'll tell you later." I sized him up.

"You're not going to work today?" I asked Soda.

"What? No, no."

"Why?"

"Look, Dal, come here," Two-Bit led me into the living room and sat me down. He handed me his beer.

"You'll need this," he said.

"You know how Johnny was hurt pretty badly in the fire?" Two-Bit asked.

"Yeah."

"Well, Johnny couldn't survive after what happened to him. He died last night, Dal. And you robbed a store, and the cops were going to kill you, but Soda and Steve and Darry and I… we took the cops down before they could hurt you."

"Johnny's dead…?" I asked. I was surprised at how small my voice sounded.

"Yeah, Dal, he's gone," I stood up. I dug the rear of my palm into my eye and tugged at my hair.

Johnny's dead, Johnny's dead, Johnny's dead, Johnny's gone, Johnny left. Johnny's dead. Johnny's…

I slammed the back of my hand against the television and swiped it clean off the table and onto the floor.

"Dally!" Two-Bit screamed. I slammed my fists into the couch and eventually burrowed my fingernails in the cushions of the couch, tearing it open.I hit my hands against the floor, over and over. My fists slammed against the floor as I screamed, "Johnny's dead, Johnny's dead, Johnny's dead!" I pounded my head against the floor and laid there until Soda came running in.

"Dally, what the hell?!"


	2. Chapter 2

I woke up, my wrists and ankles stiff and then with a yank of them, they wouldn't budge. I opened my eyes. I was tied to Ponyboy and Sodapop's bed.

"Soda!" I hollered. I heard footsteps quickly scattering across the floor, and the door slamming open.

"What the hell, Soda? Y'all chained me to the bed?" I snapped.

"Dallas, you were losing your head. You were throwing stuff around and ripping cushions up," Soda said.

"Wh-… Oh…. Sorry…" I sat quietly.

"Ponyboy, get Dallas some water," Soda started to untie the knots of rope on my ankles.

"I'm sorry, Sodapop. I just can't…"

"I know, Dal. It's been real hard for all of us right now," he said as I wiggled my feet free.

"Did her old lady come by and ask?" Soda was quiet for a minute.

"No… She didn't. And neither did his old man. I don't think they know." It was a good thing my hands were still tied because I would've rammed them into the picture frame on Pony's bedside table.

"This is my fault, So," I said as Ponyboy shuffled back in with the most solemn look a boy could have on his face.

"Nah, Dal. This is no one's fault."

"If it's anyone's fault, it's mine," Ponyboy said.

"No, come here," Soda wrapped his arm around his neck and sat him down on the bed next to him.

"This is no one's fault. We can't say it's anybody's."

"If I hadn't talked to Cherry, Bob wouldn't have gotten mad and they wouldn't have—"

"Ponyboy, you open your mouth again, and I'll shut your trap. No one is supposed to feel guilty here. This is hard, but we'll get through it," Soda hugged Ponyboy.

"And Dal, it's not your fault either. So you better hush up."

They left me to sleep. I couldn't. I told Soda, but he just kept telling me over and over to try. Two-Bit tried cheering me up, Darry cooked for me. They tried all they could, but I couldn't sleep, I didn't want anyone touching me, and I barely got out of bed.

I got up one day to see everyone in the kitchen while Steve and Two-Bit were fooling around with the stove, seeing how hot things got before they caught on fire. And Steve snuck his hand under the stove and hollered, "Holy hell!", leaving a nasty burn on his hand. His thumb became a blistering red, and suddenly the kitchen was in the flames and a beam fell from the ceiling and hit Steve, causing him to fall, and Pony started screaming, "Johnny, Johnny, get outta there!" And Two-Bit's cigarette smoke swallowed me up, and I hit Steve with my palms over and over, trying to get him to breathe again, but when I looked up, everyone was staring at me with wide eyes and burnt cigarette butts.

"Dally, are you okay?" Darry asked.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine, I'm fine," I said. Soda came up and pulled the skin under my eyes to look into my pupils.

"Darry, I think we need to talk."


	3. Chapter 3

They made me sleep on the couch in the living room so that Pony and Sodapop could sleep again.

All I had was a thin blanket and my boxers while uncomfortably resting my neck on the arm of the couch. I tried some TV before struggling going to sleep. I couldn't exactly stir because it was a couch, and there's only so much room to move on with a couch. Once I finally fell into a state of half consciousness, I heard a voice.

"Dally…" someone whispered. I immediately sat up. No one was in the room. I almost got up to go tell Darry, but I heard it again.

"Dally, it's me…" someone said. It was a soft, thin voice, one that seemed to be hanging on the end of a thread.

"Who?" I asked, sitting up, the ball of my feet touching the floor.

"Johnny." My heart stopped.

"I need to tell you some things, Dal," he said.

"Johnny?" I said. He emerged from the doorway and sat in the middle of the living room floor. He didn't have that scar on his cheek, and his hair was long and greasy, and he was clad in clean jeans and shirt.

"I just wanted to tell you to watch a sunset. I don't think you've ever seen one, have ya, Dal?" I shook my head and got on the floor as well.

"Have you ever read Gone With the Wind?" Johnny asked. I shook my head again.

"You should. Pony has a copy of it. Ask him to read it out loud to ya." I actually started to become really overwhelmed until there became a deep pain near the center of my chest.

"And one last thing," he said.

"Yeah, Johnny?"

"Behave," he said and started to get up.

"No, Johnny, no," I grabbed his ankle and smothered my face into the floor.

"I have to go, Dal," he said.

"No, Johnny, YOU CAN'T GO," his ankle slipped from my grasp, and I felt nothing. I started to heave from crying so much, but I heard Darry come running in with Soda.

"Dally, DALLY!" Darry straightened me up against the skirt of the couch.

"Hey, Dally, what's wrong?" Soda asked.

"Johnny's gone," I said.

"Yeah…."

"He was just here and he left. He left me! Without saying goodbye!" I shouted.

Soda stared at Darry with wide eyes. Darry helped put me back on the couch and went with Soda in the kitchen.

"He's crazy," I heard Soda say.

"He's in shock."

"No, Darry, he's going insane."

"From what?"

"I don't know, maybe he's still really stressed out about it and he's freaking himself out." Darry sighed.

"We'll talk later. Let's calm him down."


	4. Chapter 4

Days went by. Then weeks. And soon a month since my episode on the couch. And I continued to see Johnny and talk to him. I saw a sunset. I finally saw one. I asked Pony to show me one and after he asked me why I wanted to, he took me in a car to a vacant lot and we watched the sun dip into the soil. And it was very silent the way back to the house. We didn't talk until dinner. When I told Johnny later that night he smiled and asked what my reaction was. I said I was in shock and he said he was too the first time he saw one.

They thought I was handicapped after I was almost unable to cook my own food. I was afraid to use the heat in any form, scared it would burn my skin again.

I only laid on the couch and counted the cracks in the ceiling without sleep and would get up the next day and struggle with insomnia again.

I had a psychotic break 5 weeks after my episode I had on the couch. Johnny brought me a tray of dinner and he burned his hand on the plate and died on the floor and I hollered until Ponyboy restrained me. They gave me a bunch of aspirin and made me sleep in Darry's bed that night. I heard all three of them in Pony's room, hissing and snapping at each other.

"He can't keep freakin' out, Darry! He's gonna hurt someone!" Soda snapped.

"He's already hurt himself," Ponyboy piped up.

"Look, I know it's bad, but-"

"Darry, Pony and I were talking about this last night. We don't even feel safe anymore."

"Sodapop, we can't just throw him out in the street to fend for himself."

"He's been on the street for years!" Ponyboy said.

"Yeah and he was somewhat sane then. Now he's not. Look, Darry, we gotta do something," Soda said.

"What are you proposing we do, Soda?" Darry asked.

"They just built that asylum some miles out from here," Sodapop said.

"You can't put him in a mental asylum!" Darry hissed.

"What else are we gonna do, Darry?! Leave him at the dingo?!"

"Shhhh! Look, there's gotta be somewhere else where he'll behave," Darry said.

"The reformatory," Ponyboy said.

"You can't put him-"

"Now wait a minute, Pony, that's not a bad idea," Darry said.

"What?" Soda said.

"If the cops see he's not mentally okay, they'll put him there right?" Darry asked.

"I guess," Soda said. It was quiet.

"You want to set him up?! Darry!" Soda snapped.

"Get him back on the streets, he'll break the law somehow, and we can put him in there."

"Why don't we just put him in there ourselves?" Soda said.

"Where do we have the money for that?" Darry said. It was quiet again.

"I'm not talking about it anymore," Soda said and I heard the bed creak.


End file.
